Should graffiti offenders face stiffer penalties?

BY ERIN SALADIN

Because of its prevalence and small penalties, graffiti is a crime that is tough to combat and frustrating for Minneapolis residents.

Len Gudmunson, a postal clerk, steps outside his Powderhorn house and is dismayed by the blue graffiti newly painted onto his white garage. This is the fourteenth time his garage has been “painted up” in the past two years.
“I’m upset,” he said. “I wonder why they decide that they have to do this thing. It’s a senseless act of violence.”

Every year, millions of dollars are spent cleaning up graffiti from neighborhoods across the country. In Minneapolis, the incidence of graffiti has risen over the past few years.

“It [graffiti] is, in fact, the worst I’ve seen in my experience in the police department in many, many years,” Minneapolis Crime Prevention Specialist Don Greeley said. “It has become such a concern to the community that we had almost 300 people show up at a community meeting last week about the problem.”

The Italian word “graffiti” means “words or drawings scratched or scribbled on a wall.” Today, “graffiti” refers to writing that appears on public and private property without permission.

Karen Skrivseth, a Minneapolis crime prevention specialist, agrees that graffiti is senseless. She said the reasons people use graffiti depend on whether it is “gang” or “tagger” graffiti.

The Minneapolis Police website describes gang graffiti as a way for gangs to identify each other’s turf. Gang graffiti serves as a bulletin board to communicate various messages including violent challenges, warnings and pronouncements of deeds accomplished or about to occur. These messages are understood by other gang members and sometimes rival gangs. Gang graffiti makes up about 20 percent of the graffiti in Minneapolis, police estimate.

Tagger graffiti makes up the rest. They are usually youths who try to gain recognition and status from their peers by placing distinctive “tags” in public places and in as many places as possible. Another reputation-builder is the artistic value of the graffiti.

The most common targets for graffiti are large walls, garage walls and fences, Skrivseth said. Other targets include dumpsters and trash containers.
One way to discourage graffiti is through artwork. “When a mural is up they don’t touch the wall,” Skrivseth said. The Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association encourages residents to put up murals to deter taggers from defacing their property.

Another deterrent for graffiti is using video cameras. This is a more expensive proposal that most residents are not willing to use.
A cheaper deterrent is planting thorny vines and bushes around walls or places that can easily be hit. “I call it crime prevention through environmental design,” Skrivseth said.

For Gudmunson, preventive measures are beside the point. “If you want something to write on, I’ll give you some boards to write on,” he said.
With his property a constant target for taggers, Gudmunson is thankful for the graffiti removal system the Minneapolis Police Department offers. The program works with residents and neighborhood groups to get rid of graffiti. If residents find graffiti on their property, they can call 612-673-2090, report it and have it removed free of charge. The only exceptions are sensitive surfaces like unpainted brick or stucco, which are not eligible for the city’s graffiti removal. This program helps speed the removal of graffiti.

Residents like Gudmunson worry that graffiti causes a downward spiral for the neighborhood. Graffiti lowers neighborhood appeal, lowers property values, and drives prospective homebuyers away, he believes. Tagging can also lead to crimes like shoplifting, drug dealing and prostitution, according to police.
“Graffiti lowers the self-esteem of the residents if you leave it up,” Gudmunson said. “I’m proud to live in the Powderhorn neighborhood. You got to have enough love of the neighborhood to keep out graffiti.”

About one block down from Gudmunson’s home, The City, Inc. has seen less than its share of graffiti. The City is a nonprofit, alternative school for Minneapolis public school students. Principal Delon Smith is surprised that it has only been tagged once this past year, especially because some of his students are in gangs. He said that, in general, most taggers stay away from schools because it is government property and the penalties for tagging them may be stricter.
Like Gudmunson, Smith works to get rid of graffiti quickly. If a gang tags a building and it is not removed promptly, a rival gang will usually add to it out of disrespect to the gang who originally tagged it, he said.

“Some graffiti is an art, not just letters claiming a building,” Smith said. “It’s just most graffiti that tears down a neighborhood. It adds fear and defaces the neighborhood.”

Current punishments for graffiti may not be doing much in the way of deterrence.
“Right now there aren’t any consequences,” Skrivseth said. “In order for it to be a felony, the damage has to be worth over $500.”

If the cost to the victim to remove the graffiti exceeds $500, it can be prosecuted as a felony rather than a misdemeanor. In some cases where police are able to prove that the suspect tagged multiple properties, they can add together the removal costs for multiple victims and then charge the tagger with a felony. This can carry a higher penalty, Greeley said.

Taggers are caught in a number of different ways, Skrivseth said, including associates and snitches. Taggers who are arrested and do not meet the $500 minimum are then fined or sentenced to community service, which she said is not a big deal to them.

“The vast majority of graffiti criminals are not caught or prosecuted,” Greeley said, “especially where gang graffiti is concerned.”

Shonda Allen, a representative for the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association, would like stricter penalties for tagging.

“They tag, we clean. They tag, we clean. It doesn’t do anything,” she said. “The offenders don’t pay a huge fine for these. It’s very minimal.”

Gudmunson thinks that offenders should be made to remove all graffiti in an assigned area for six months. He said this punishment might decrease the occurrence of graffiti because the offenders would tell other taggers, “I’m getting sick of covering over your blue paint.”

In terms of deterring the crime, Smith said it is up to the businesses.
“Businesses should take a stand against graffiti,” he said. “A big part of the problem is a fear to press charges. The fear of retaliation causes people to keep silent, which lets offenders run rampant.”

Allen also wants the community to take charge of graffiti. “We need to get the youth involved in the community” to deter them from tagging by teaching them to care about their community, she said.

The words painted on The City, Inc.’s mural speak to taggers and touch at the heart of the issue: “Where is the love?”

Protect Your Property:
Limit access to roofs; move commercial dumpsters away from walls and cover drainpipes to prevent vandals from scaling them.

When painting your property, consider darker colors that are less attractive to graffiti vandals.

Increase lighting around your property; use motion-detecting lights to draw attention to movement.

• Consider applying a protective coating, which provides a barrier between your property’s surface and the graffiti. Several different brands and prices are available. Check the Yellow Pages under “Graffiti Removal & Protection.” Residents may now call 3-1-1 to reach the City’s graffiti hotline.